I really want to understand about the Surface Plasmon of metal nanoparticles, if anyone can explain it to me i'll be grateful.
I have checked Wikipedia for it but didn't get anything clear.
Asked
Active
Viewed 241 times
1 Answers
1
What level are you at?
When you totally internal reflect light on a surface there is an electric field which extends a very small distance out of the surface - this is called the evanescent wave and excites states on the surface called surface plasmons.
The interesting thing is that if you very slightly change the electrical characteristics of the surface you can make a big change in the internally reflected light. So a clever way of making extremely sensitive sensors is to bind some metal nanoparticles to the surface and coat them with some chemical that reacts with what you are looking for. The chemical you are sensing sticks to the nanoparticles, changes the electrical field and changes the reflected light = very sensitive chemical/biochemical detector.
Martin Beckett
- 30,766
-
Ah, thanks for the clarification, and what's plasmon oscillations ? – Rafael Adel Jun 22 '12 at 21:29